ArcStone Spotlight - Chris Hentges

Title: Chief Operations Officer

Start date: October 2007

Chief Operations Officer aka Traffic cop. I make sure all of the teams communicate and that projects go from point A to point B.

Path to ArcStone. I started my own company with a friend of mine and we had fallen into some financial trouble for a number of months. Slowly but surely, people had left, and I had to sit down and make a decision on what I wanted to do. I decided to take a look around, and I sent out three resumes and got three responses. David was one of them, and I liked him the best.

Professional strengths. Master of all trades, jack of none. I come to the table with strong programming skills. At my previous company, I was one of the people that put things together, and with that background of helping start a company, it helps me in what I do today. I’m really good at breaking complex problems down into the simplest forms so that everyone can understand it. In terms of the team here, sometimes someone will be stressing about something, and I will help assess it and get to the root of the situation. I don’t get flustered easily.

Hometown. I grew up in Maple Grove, and it developed over a span of ten years. I remember when Cub Foods was a field. The Cub moved in and everyone was like, “Oh, my god! Cub! We’re on our way! We’re gonna make it!”

The Doogie Howser, M.D. of produce. I’ve always been able to stand out in all of my jobs. During my teenage years, I worked in a grocery store, I excelled quickly there. I went from bagger to maintenance to grocery to in charge of the grocery crew -- and I was only 17.

The perks of being at ArcStone. It’s nice to not just be a number. I like feeling like I matter, and that I can make a real change in here without the bureaucracy. I can walk anywhere I want and say, “I don’t think I like that. Let’s change it this way,” or “I like that, Let’s keep it.”

Everyone has a place here. No one treads into other's places too much. We’re really respectful of others, and when we do get in their space, it’s more to help than anything.

What’s on my playlist. I grew up in the ‘80s, and my brothers were eight and ten years older than me. That’s enough of an age difference where what they were listening to influenced me. Most 7-year-olds wouldn’t typically be into ‘80s hair metal music, but I was awkwardly into it. I like a lot of ‘80s and early ‘90s music -- right around the Boyz II Men period. I also got into harder rock and electronic music. That stuff influences a lot of what I listen to right now.

Legos are the gateway to Minecraft. In my free time, I like watching sports -- football, boxing, hockey, mainly contact sports, but what I really like to do is play Minecraft. I think it was because I spent a crazy amount of time playing Legos as a kid, and I can play Minecraft as an adult , and no one thinks it’s weird. No one really understands it until you play it for at least an hour. At some point, everyone has the epiphany of, “This is going to take up my life.”

Lunch anyone? World Street Kitchen is just down the street from the office, and that’s a good, fast place to get lunch. Bryant Lake Bowl and the Herkimer are always solid, too.